How Much Can I Make? — Real Jobs. Real Stories. Career Insights

Voice-Over Career: Money & Reality

• Mirav Ozeri - Career Insights Journalist • Season 2 • Episode 101

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Your voice can earn real money, but what does a voice-over career actually look like, and how much can a professional voice actor make?

We sit down with Heike Bachmann, a German voice-over artist based in New York, to go inside the business of professional voice-over work. Heike explains what the job really involves, from reading scripts with precise time codes to dubbing, lip-syncing, commercials, cartoons, museum audio tours, corporate narration, and medical voice-over work.

Heike also shares the unlikely story of how she landed her first voice-over job and turned it into a successful 30-year voice-over career.

We break down voice-over pay and earnings, including what beginners can charge, how commercial usage fees can reach thousands of dollars, and how auditions, agents, online casting platforms, and remote home studios have changed the business.

And then there’s AI. Heike explains how AI voice cloning and synthetic voices are already affecting professional voice actors, why contracts and voice rights matter, and where she believes the industry is headed.

If you’re wondering how to become a voice actor, how much voice-over artists make, what equipment you need to start, or whether voice-over is still a viable career in the age of AI, this conversation gives you a firsthand look at the money, skills, opportunities, and realities behind the microphone.

Heike Bachmann website: https://www.heikebachmann.com/

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Music credit: Kate Pierson & Monica Nation

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About the host: Mirav Ozeri has always been drawn to storytelling and journalism, especially the stories of everyday people.

In the 90’s She founded her own video production company, producing, directing, and editing documentaries and videos for political organizations which led to a 17-year career at CBS News, where she served as a producer/editor, helped launch CBS MarketWatch, and later worked as a senior editor and segment producer until the program was acquired by Dow Jones.

During her years at CBS, Mirav developed and produced a television pilot built around a simple idea: giving people an honest look at what different careers are really like. Although the pilot was never picked up, the concept stayed with her. Years later, she brought it back as How Much Can I Make?, a podcast that explores real jobs, real stories, and the many paths people take to build a career.

The Hook Behind Voice Work

SPEAKER_01

If there's a live recording, if you worry about the next word, you are messing up the one that you are trying to say right now. You have to give each word, each syllable, you have to imbue with life, with energy.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Hi, welcome back to How Much Can I Make, the podcast about jobs and careers. I'm your host, Miravozeri. Can your voice make you thousands of dollars for just a few hours of work? Well, my guest today, Heike Bachmann, is doing just that. She fell into voiceover almost by accident. She turned it into a 30-year thriving career. Today she tell us what the job is really like: the pay, the demand, the opportunities, and whether AI is about to change everything. So let's hear it from Heike. Thank you so much for being on the show. I was looking for a voiceover artist for a very long time.

SPEAKER_01

That is such a surprise because I think there are many out there.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

I know. Took time, thanks for Fatima that introduced

What A Professional Voiceover Does

Mirav Ozeri - Host

us. So, first of all, for people that don't know the industry, what exactly a professional voiceover is?

SPEAKER_01

Usually what you do is you get a script and often a video that is already shot and a script with time codes. Then you are recording, you're bringing the script to life with your voice. In my case, there often is already an English voice with a video, and I have to lay the German over.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

That's it, I can hear your accent. So you do German voiceover.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. I would say 90% of what I do is German voiceovers, and 10% sometimes some multinational companies want to get a continental European accent.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Oh, in English.

SPEAKER_01

In English, exactly. So for example, I I once had this already a long time ago, so I can talk about it. I had a job for Pfizer, a biological research report that they wanted to send out, and Pfizer has subsidiaries all over the world. And they said to me, they don't like when they're being they feel talked down to when they get everything always in American English. So we would like it in English so everybody understands, but with an accent, so they all feel, oh, okay, it's somebody like us who just speaks well English.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

That makes sense. How does a woman

From Munich To New York

Mirav Ozeri - Host

from Munich end up in New York and doing voiceover?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, very good question. I came over first on a practical training visa. I had studied German literature, got my master's degree in Munich, and I had a little part-time job during the time at university at a publishing house as a student. Doing what? Proof-reading editions, microfish editions that were recording parliament parliamentary sessions in Germany. Okay. And while I was not interested in the law, I have to admit, but I wanted to get international experience. And I saw that they had one book that they published with an American publishing house. Back then it was called Matthew Bender. So I went to my editorial director and I said, Do you think there's a chance I can do a year overseas in this publishing house and just get my resume going? He sent back then still a fax to Charlie Mara, who was the editorial director in New York City. And he said, Yeah, come on over, let's see what we can do with you. I just fell in love with New York and life in New York. I have to say, what started out as a practical training ended up in a 13-year career in legal publishing. Voiceovers fell in my lap already in the first year almost.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

What was the first job you did as a voiceover?

SPEAKER_01

As a voiceover? Hilarious. I voiced a video that is being played in Germany in American embassies in Germany or in consulates. So if Germans go to get a visa for America, they go to the American consulate in Germany. But they see a video about life in New York or about the West Coast. And the voiceover has to be in German, of course. So that was my very first job.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

So who hired you for that? The State Department?

SPEAKER_01

They probably were the ultimate client, but it was an agency in New York City. And the way it came about is that I started teaching German at a Bulitz language school. And they said after a week or so, they said, you know what? You have a good German voice. Once in a while we get a request for voiceovers. Can you give us a tape? I didn't even know what a voiceover was back then. I was like, a voiceover. And back then I had friends in the jazz world in New York, and somebody recorded my voice, and I handed in my little cassette tape with my telephone number. And then it was quiet for two, three years, and I completely forgot about it. And then one day my phone in the office rings. Oh my god, that's so fun. Are you still doing voiceovers? And I was like, I never had done one. And of course I had to say, sure. The American way. And then that's it. They said we sent you a VHS tape and the script. And then you show up next week, three o'clock. The first recording, interesting, was in the Citibank Tower in Queens. I don't know if you know that. Back then, at least, had a voice studio on the top floor. And the client had booked the studio for three hours because it was very intricate. Sometimes I had to actually lip sync over a Chinese policewoman in Chinatown and lip sync the voices. But being German, I overprepared. And I showed up and we were done in less than an hour. And that was the beginning.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

But you said something interesting, over-prepared. I want to know how do you prepare? Somebody comes to you for a job, let's say the German consulate. What does it take before you even start recording? How do you prepare for a job like that?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. So back then I prepared much more than I do now. Actually, now I prefer almost a little more cold reading. But what I did, so basically I watched the video several times, and each video had the seconds and the tenths of seconds and the milliseconds. And then I have a script. And then you look exactly how much time do I have? When does the mouth open and the mouth close again? It has to be done. And that is pretty intricate. So when you start out, I highly advise to spend a lot of time with it. And then later you can find out that there is a muscle somewhere up there that helps you if you have it. I never knew I had it. And somehow it became intuitive for me to watch the video a couple of times, look at the script while I watch the video back and forth, and then just let it flow.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

So okay, they give it to you in the German language. Yeah. Do you do anything with the translation? Do you correct them? Do you fix it a little bit?

SPEAKER_01

Usually not until you have the session. You're in the sound booth with a sound engineer, and the sound engineer says, You're two seconds over. Then I try to read faster. Then the sound engineer said, We're still a second over. And that's when you then talk with the client or the agency or the sometimes there's a linguistic director. You say, We have to change the script. We don't always have the permission. So when I recorded for Pfizer, it had to go through Gazillian legal departments. There was nothing we could change. They had to actually adjust the video. That happens sometimes to the visuals to the extent. But often the the problem is that German is about 30% more wordy than English.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

You actually have to see when they close the mouth, so your mouth will be closed with a word.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, if you do lip syncing, which was my first job, was already the hardest job. Later it got much easier, didn't always do you ever have to work with dialogue?

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Like somebody else says something and you have to say, so it's more of a timing issue?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, I love dialogue, but it's the same thing when, for example, people record a jazz or pop album. You go into the studio by yourself and you hear them, but they're not necessarily in the studio with you. So I sometimes go in and the male voice is already recorded, and then I come in and do my part, and then the male voice comes back in.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

So that brings me to the question. Did you have to study acting?

SPEAKER_01

I didn't have to. I later took a couple of acting classes just to for fun on the weekends. I still had a corporate career. I went actually in my lunchtime to my voiceover studios. I think it's almost a hindrance to have an acting background. And I tell you why. I have a couple of colleagues, they're amazing actors, and I recommended them for voiceover sometimes. And it's it's just not working. It's for some reason. Very rarely is a good actor also a good voiceover. Very rarely. And vice versa. I'm a horrible actress, by the way. But I'm a good voice actor. I'm really good with voice, so I have no qualms saying that. And I feel more comfortable when the door closes and there's just me and the microphone, the headset, I hear my heartbeat, my breath, I calm down, and I feel liberated. And it's a very different environment than being an actor.

What Kind of Training Needed

SPEAKER_01

So, what kind of training did you have to get? Very good question, also. Like, I I think in my case, what happened is our parents read a lot to us and then encouraged us as children to read out loud. Out loud. So we did always the the season leading up to Christmas. We were when it's winter and you're doing little crafts, crafty things at home. I was always the one reading out loud. I loved it. I loved it. I just loved reading and reading out aloud. And then I ended up studying literature because I love words and reading.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

And yeah, so but you do things like you said for Pfizer and you did some commercial, you did some for Google. These are all very dry kind of things, like especially if you read medical stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

So what do you do to liven it?

SPEAKER_01

I just must say that's where the art comes in, is to actually imbue that with life as a dry text like that. And it's really, I think you can you can see the humanity in everything. That's how you go about that as well. If it's like a clinical trial where it says if patient is many years old, you give you give five milligrams of puckly toxol or something. Okay, there's only so much you can put into that. But a biomedical research report that talks about how they were able to provide clean water in certain areas in Africa, it's very moving. And other things that that are very moving, talking about that. Museum audio tours that I did quite a bit. And there was one particular one for the Hagen Planetarium in New York City at that time.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

I heard it in English actually.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah, you did. Yeah. It was an incredible one, it was called Journey to the Stars. And there was a moment where it led up where you say, and this is how our moon developed. And I literally had to just stop and like you choke up. It's so moving. It's such a sometimes you do incredible things, or I did a voiceover for Alcatraz.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Alcatraz.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Because you can take a tour, a German audio tour. People take put their headsets on, and then it's a self-guided tour. And there was a moment, it's not Al Capone Cell or the Birdman, all of this is great. But there was a moment where in the voiceover they describe how on New Year's Eve, when the wind came in a certain way, the prisoners could smell the perfume of the women celebrating New Year's Eve on the coast. And I thought, and they went crazy, obviously. I thought it's incredible stuff. Or MS Arizona, Pearl Harbor, I did an audio tour for that too. So sometimes it's so moving that you literally say, I need a minute, and then you go out and you come back to the booth.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

You just fell into this and you did tour for all these museums?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And I literally, as I said, I did it in my lunch break. And then one day I did a recording. Actually, for Random House, they have a language program called Living Language. And I did the whole German language program. And that was in a studio with a wonderful couple, Paul and Paula Rubin. Both of them actually actors, and they ran the studios and they were producers. And they came up one day and said, Heike, do you even have an agent? And like, no. I just they people find me. I have actually another job. And they said, let us make an appointment. And they made an appointment literally for me with an agent back then at Abrams Artist, and it just changed my life. That's when I realized I probably can do this full time.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Yeah. And for a long time. Yeah. And I read the reviews that people gave you and your clients, they were raving about you.

SPEAKER_01

Of course, I only put the good ones up. No, it's not.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Okay. You did stuff I saw I read for Grand Theft Auto cartoons, museum tours, like you said, Google commercials, and many others. Did you do any films by the way?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, actually a lot for the history channel. For the history channel. Yeah, especially you know, reading, oh my god, there was a beautiful documentary about the founder of the Israeli Symphonic Orchestra. Oh, really? What his I almost want to say his name was Zuberman, but I don't know.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

It was uh Zubin Meta, no?

SPEAKER_01

Before Zubin Meta. Before Zubin Meta? Before Zubin Meta, something man was the last name and his secretary, there were many letters, and I read them with in English with the German accent, of course. That was a beautiful job, actually.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Yeah. So from all of those, the different ones, which is the most difficult to work with, and which is the most enjoyable?

SPEAKER_01

I have to say the most enjoyable is for me this children cartoon

Making Dry Copy Feel Human

SPEAKER_01

Caillou that I've done so many seasons. And first of all, every time I meet parents and they're like, oh my kid loves Caillou, and I get to do several characters, not all female characters, but two, three different ones, and it's so much fun. But that really goes with the producer tuning in me watching the cartoon and a sound engineer somewhere else. So it's a very elaborate setup.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

So how long does it take you to rehearse for something like that? I have to admit, I at this stage I don't anymore.

SPEAKER_01

I go in cold and we just do it. So what they do is basically the producer shows me the scene in English. I have obviously the text with me on another uh laptop, and and then we go back, the sound engineer plays you three beeps so you know exactly when to come in, and then you go for it. But you go scene by scene, so it's not that I have to do the entire episode in one go, then I would have to really prepare. But scene by scene, you can, if you have a little bit of experience under your belt, you can do it.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

So they're usually in a case like this a producer in room in the room and a recorder online.

SPEAKER_01

Online. My producer, Apolla Gammon, she sits in Portugal. So she listens in from Portugal and the sound engineer, Questa, he sits in Brooklyn, and I'm sitting in my booth upstairs.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

This is what I wanted to ask you. What made you build your booth? It's I looked at it, I was there. It's very quiet, it's very professional. When did you build the booth? What made you actually go all the way for that?

SPEAKER_01

One word, COVID. Before that, it was all in the studios. I had a bicycle in New York City and I biked from studio to studio for auditions, for recordings. I was out and about all day. And then when COVID hit, it was it was obviously a big shock for everybody and for all of us. And I back then already had a little bit of a setup because my husband as a professor always spent three months in the summer on research projects in Europe, and I didn't want to lose my clients, so I had a little bit of a travel setup already, but nothing as elaborate as we have now. But I knew already a little bit how to record myself, and that helped me in the very beginning of COVID. A lot of clients came to me because people were caught off guard all of a sudden. No studio was working anymore. And then one of my sound engineers said, Heike, actually, if you want to up it a little bit, here's a list of this is the type of mic you need. These are this is the room treating, you know, for sound, yeah, for so quiet. Yes, exactly. This is the interface. I'm like, oh my god, I never used an interface. It was a little, it took a little time to get used to all of that. And then learning different softwares like Audacity, and then also biting the bullet and getting a license for Source Connect, which is was the key in the beginning, how to connect a sound engineer from somewhere and a client from somewhere else. And you can have 10 people on a call sometimes.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

But now you can roll out of bed and record a session. It's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

It's a dream job. It's a dream job. So I told you that I looked for a voiceover person for a long time because I hear that it's a very lucrative business. It can be.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's both. I would say probably American voiceovers. They make a lot of money because you do the commercials. You are a member of SAC and AFTRA.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

You are not a member of SAG and AFTRA?

SPEAKER_01

No, because if you are a member of SAG and AFTRA, you cannot do non-union jobs. And all German voiceovers are non-union. Then I would basically deprive myself of 90% of my work. But it's still lucrative. But is it very competitive business? If you do American voiceovers in America, yes, it is. Being a German voiceover, it's less

The Competition

SPEAKER_01

of a competition, I would say. It was much less before COVID because we were just a handful of people. We all knew each other. It was a lot of fun. Also, like when one couldn't do it, say, hey, can you do this job? or I will sit in and read along. You always have a language director, so to say, in the session. But since COVID, it has also opened up. I'm competing with all of Germany now, which is not easy. And I wake up in the morning, as you say, roll out of bed, and they are already at one o'clock in the afternoon, and they saw all the audition postings. And I can see how many people auditioned already. And if it's 56 female voices, I'm not even bothering to put my audition in because which client listens to 56 auditions? If you have the voice you're looking for, or someone close to in the first 10 auditions, you book that.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

You

The Auditions

Mirav Ozeri - Host

have to audition for every job, or some people that already worked with you said, Yeah, just come do this commercial. Yeah, both. What is the audition like? How does it work? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So again, it's now very different. It used to be before COVID that you literally showed up in a studio, you had a particular time because they invited several, and you go in and you do basically your audition and done and hope for the best. Now, auditions very rarely once in a while they come in through an agency. They send you an email and say, We need this tomorrow by nine o'clock. This is the text, this is how you name the file, and then you upload it. Many auditions come now through these online portals, voices.com or voice123.com. And you fill out a profile. And if a job matches your profile, like female voice, accent or German or adult voice, then you get an email saying, here's an audition that matches your profile, your voice, and then says this is when we need the audition by, and here's the text, and this is what it would pay, but you put also in your own idea what you would like for the job.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

They give you a range.

How Voice-Over Artists get paid

Mirav Ozeri - Host

How are voiceovers artists get paid? By the session, by the minute, by the project? How does it work?

SPEAKER_01

All of the above. Some pay by project, some pay by the minute, especially when it's longer jobs than they say by finished minute of audio. They paid that. That's a possibility. And now, just recently, and that's a beauty, I have to say, because we are non-union via foreign voiceovers, we get usage. Royalties is like royalties. Yeah, it's a buyout. There are a couple of jobs I just literally cannot talk about because you have to sign NDAs, especially for the big ones. But I did some beautiful commercials, they were really nicely done for enterprise mobility, enterprise cars or so. And so you get paid for the recording session and then by the hour or whatever it is.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01

By the hour, they say, yeah. We say a minimum of two hours.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

What do they pay by the hour?

SPEAKER_01

So the recording sessions are never huge amounts. So it's 250, I would say, and then they say a minimum of two, which is like $500. That's nice. But then the buyout comes in, and then they say buyout for social media, TV, radio, wherever they say, then buy out. We

Building A Home Booth During COVID

SPEAKER_01

have the whole commercial, which is 30 seconds, then we have a cut down 15 seconds, and another cutdown for just six seconds. And they buy have to buy or pay for each separate one for a year or for two years. And often they come back after a year and say they want we want to extend.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

So they pay a flat fee, let's say for social media. Yeah. They pay you a flat fee for that. Yeah. They do not by the amount of the views that they had and all of that.

SPEAKER_01

It's just the flat fee to use it for a year or for eternity, perpetuity.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

What do they pay in the thousands or the hundreds? Wow. How much? For example, I'm a manufacturer, I come to you to do German, I pay you for the session, and then I'm gonna put it on social media. How much do I have to pay?

SPEAKER_01

So social media alone is maybe around three, four thousand per year. But if it's social media plus radio plus TV, it can end up yeah in the ten thousand. Great job. Yeah, it's wonderful, especially when they come back and say the year's over and we want to renew for another year, and I don't even have to record anymore. So that's beautiful. These jobs don't Come every day.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Yeah, no, of course. So who keeps an eye on the money? Your agent?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. The agent, and that's another good thing actually to talk about. And now it's the online agency. So this particular job I booked through voices.com, and it's an agency that sits up in Ontario and Canada, and they have some amazing project managers who work there, and they deal with a client, and the client comes back to them and says, we want to renew this particular recordings. I also have a freelance with a couple of agencies. Again, being not an American voiceover, it doesn't make sense to be exclusive with one agency. So I have three different agents and it's wonderful. They keep an eye on it. I have one fantastic lady in good French management, and she just always says, Heike, the year's over. How shall we negotiate? This is my idea. What do you say? What do you want for this and this? Great. It's that's really great.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

That is fantastic. I always heard that voiceover is well-paid jobs. Yeah. It's better than acting, actually.

SPEAKER_01

And you can gain weight, you can lose weight, you can get wrinkles. Nobody cares. You can record in your pyjamas. It's you can have a bad air day. But you cannot get a cold. That's the other thing. You have to be very careful with your voice. And that's really often

Protecting Your Voice For Work

SPEAKER_01

How do you treat your voice? What do you do to keep your voice? To my husband's big detriment, no air conditioner. Because air condition kills you. If you sleep in a room with air conditioned the next morning, your voice really is not so good. And you have to just be careful. You always have to have a scarf with you. You just have to. It's your instrument.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Do you drink something?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. It's not only honey and lemon, what everybody says. I got a good tip once by a sound engineer, actually, while I did the Pfizer job, and he said the best thing is to bite into an apple. It completely, the acid from the apple cuts through the saliva, and so you don't have the clicks that come, you know, with a dry mouth or so. So apple juice or having an apple always.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Apple juice or bite into an apple. Yeah, yeah. Bite into the apple.

SPEAKER_01

Bite into you don't even have to swallow the apple, just bite into the apple and suck a little bit the juice out. You instantly have no more saliva sounds in your recording. So I always go upstairs with an apple in my hand into my booth.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Oh my god, that's such a good tip because I record opening and ending and I get, oh my god, it's a live stream.

SPEAKER_01

I tell you, it's fantastic.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Who would have known that? Let's say somebody wants to get into the business. What is the most important skill that they need to have in order to be successful in this business?

SPEAKER_01

I think the most important skill is there are two things to love it and to be in the moment. What do you mean be in the moment? If you read a text, you have a text in front of you, you cannot be a second ahead or a word ahead or behind. For example, if there's a live recording, if you worry about the next word, you are messing up the one that you're trying to say right now. You have to give each word, each syllable, you have to imbue with life, with energy.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Yeah, I would say that's probably the biggest challenge. If somebody just starting out, how much can they earn?

SPEAKER_01

Really, it differs. It differs from client to client. If a client likes your voice and thinks you're great, and the job is a big job, meaning commercial or online or something, that can pay well. I think it's more regular to start out a little smaller. And I often now younger voice talents come to me and ask me how much shall I ask for the job? And I said, if you're starting out and your client is willing to work with you, start out with a hundred dollars an hour. Don't overdo it, don't go crazy in the beginning, and then build up from there. And let me tell you, I still do jobs for $100 an hour. Like I often fly the studio, huh? Yeah, exactly. No-brainer. Yeah, not every job is a big job. And having the studio there, and as you say, being able to roll out of bed and do it, you take smaller jobs too. What is considered a big job? Now the jobs can get really big with AI. What about books? Do you do the whole book? No. And believe it or not, it's interesting. That's I've been wanting to do that for the longest time. But in America, it's always an American talent. They do not like the accent in an audiobook.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

But does it happen that they need a character that has an accent?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, they would call you? Yes. But often it's very funny.

Auditions Portals And Getting Hired

SPEAKER_01

Often they call me because the American talent doesn't know how to pronounce it, and I record it for the American voice actor so they can, you know.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

And they pay you for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Small little small little thing. But it's fun, and I always happily do it. And in Germany, it's done by people who are living in Germany and pay taxes in Germany. That's a little bit of an interesting situation because I'm a German voice talent in America, as opposed to a German voice talent in Germany. So for example, until Netflix, I would say the big Hollywood movies, they were all dubbed in Germany. Because there's a whole, how can I say, a German actors and voice actors union makes sure they get the jobs and other things? So we German voice actors in America, even though we can much more work with the American language since we are bilingual by nature now, right? We could never get these jobs because we also pay taxes here, not in Germany. So very interesting. And Netflix still does it in Germany? So net more and more comes now here through the online platforms, yes. Did it happen that you did something for Yeah, but so for Netflix, honestly, again, it doesn't pay so well to do the whole movies. But what paid well, and I've done that, is uh commercial for Netflix, or to say yes, these things, then you do a commercial.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

By the way, if you do you did some really big commercials, but if they air on TV or this, do you get royalties from the commercials? No. Interesting, right?

SPEAKER_01

Because if I would live in Germany and there won in Germany, I would. Here in America, I would have to be a member of SAC, yeah.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Oh yeah, right. So okay, we just mentioned AI, but I'm very curious about it. Just last night I was looking at a website called 11 something, where they you could do a narration. You just write a script and you can choose from hundreds of voices and they'll narrate the stuff for you. Is it a competition for you?

SPEAKER_01

I definitely have to say that eventually AI will take our jobs. Definitely it will it will happen. Right now, I would say we can still, in a weird way, benefit from AI coming because they need us to provide the data, to provide the voice, to provide the even the pauses. And I've been lucky to have worked on a couple of AI projects. What's very important is that you read the contracts or you even might, for a big job, work with a lawyer to make sure that your voice and the data is only used for what you intended. Should it be cloning, you better ask for a lot of money and get it. But how would you know if they clone you? Because it's in the contract. Okay. Every AI job so far that I've been offered had a contract, and if it's offered without a contract, I don't even do it. There are some really cheaper ways, and I don't even go for that because you don't want your voice to end up somewhere where you don't want it. You have to read the contract carefully, and I have to say they've gotten very good in protecting you. So I've done, for example, one AI job in German. I cannot talk about all of them, but this one I can, that is for people who had a stroke and lost their ability to speak. And they now can choose in Germany from a catalogue of voices. And I happen to be from the southern part of Germany, so my German is a little bit different than someone from Hamburg, for example. They can choose from a catalogue of voices which voice they want to have to represent them. So if you remember Stephen Hawking's very, very rudimentary thing, this has been perfected, and AI will make this beautiful for people who really have been afflicted by something like that. Almost daily, I get for model

Rates Buyouts And Usage Renewals AI Training

SPEAKER_01

training to record all kinds of phrases for model training. Do they pay well for something like that? They do. I would say again, there's a range. The cheaper ones I would just say, unless you need it and you're starting out and it's a good way to get started, yes, but do sign your contract and read the contract. But they can also pay better. These are the ones that pay by minute, you said before, and they want to have three hours of finished audio. And it's so what do they pay for something like that?

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Three hours of finished audio? That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work. A lot of work.

SPEAKER_01

It takes you much more than three hours. Yeah. It takes you nine hours. Exactly. Three times usually. The lower range is 250 for the finished hour, up to 600 for the finished hour.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

But it's not bad if you sit at home and you just record. Exactly. It could be a side hustle.

SPEAKER_01

There you go. Exactly.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

It's a good side hustle. You never thought of moving to Germany and becoming a full-time voiceover.

SPEAKER_01

I have in the past, and luckily two, three colleagues of mine have done this before me and they all could not get into it. Wow. It's so protected. It's been, I had this wonderful, I hope he's listening, Jürgen Kühn. Jürgen, if you hear this, he he used to be kind of the godfather of German voiceovers here. He even worked with Woody Allen. He was in Seleg. He was the standard German voiceover. Because he was so successful here, he said, I'm gonna go to Germany, I'm gonna be even more successful. I think he gave it two or three years and he said, I could not break in. They are so protective. And so I never even tried it out. I did record in Germany, but it was for my American clients, like for Netflix, and I happen to be in Germany, needed to find a studio.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

You have a fantastic studio. What is the cost to start a studio like this?

SPEAKER_01

There are some really good. I think the most important one, the most expensive thing is probably the microphone. You do need a condenser microphone, but there are companies that have really good condenser mics, like junior mics. You don't have to start out with a Neumann mic, which is crazy expensive.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Is that what you have? A Neumann mic? No.

SPEAKER_01

One day, the next AI job, I get myself a Neumann. But this is such a good mic. I had this wonderful sound engineer who said this is a mic that will cost you only $300. It sounds like a $3,000 mic. It's a uh WA47 Junior mic, condenser mic. It's a really good microphone, I have to say. So you can get a relatively good back then that was like five years ago, it was $300, maybe it's now $400. Then you need an interface. Again, it's usually more expensive, but you can get a good one for $250 to $300, and then your sound panel, cables. I think for a thousand dollars you can get a that's great.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

That's not bad at all. Yeah. If you would give an advice to your 18-year-old self, what would you tell her?

SPEAKER_01

Don't worry so much.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

How old were you when you got the first job? 26.

SPEAKER_01

26 is my first voiceover job, yeah. And you didn't even know what voiceover was? I had never heard the expression before. I mean like, what is that? A voiceover, yeah.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

But would you tell your 18-year self to go and study and become a voiceover artist?

SPEAKER_01

That's a good question because is voiceover something that you pursue or you fall into? That's the with AI the way it's going right now. I would maybe not

Should People get in?

SPEAKER_01

advise it. However, I would advise anything you really love doing. I have photographs that my parents took of me reading, or I was just love.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Yes. What project do you dream about that you wish you somebody will call you to do?

SPEAKER_01

Like really good public service announcements. Something that moves me, you know, something. I did a couple of things that I loved, like for human rights watch. These were fantastic jobs, things like that. Or I did something that was played at an airport, and my husband and I landed in Germany, and all of a sudden I was blasting and I was, I record this here in my booth. I don't know. I don't hear myself so often because it usually ends up somewhere in Germany. Is that the biggest reward of the job? To hear yourself. The unexpected thing. Or when somebody calls me, like Fatima, who one day said, Oh my god, I have a whole group of tourists. We are in the Empire State Building, and there is in the elevator, it's hike. I'm just listening to your voice. This is very cute. Or a sound engineer I worked with sent me the other day a little clip of his one-year-old who is listening to Baby Einstein. And I did Baby Einstein, this is a little

Dream Project

SPEAKER_01

language program for children.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Baby Einstein is very popular all over the world.

SPEAKER_01

Really? I didn't see I don't know because I don't have children. He's like, I hear you every day because my little Greta is listening to you. So these things really move me very much.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

And what would you say is the biggest challenge of the job? Very good question.

SPEAKER_01

I would say it's really the hustle. Hustling. It's I to get the next job in the next. Exactly, exactly. Hustling and long for a long time it was also running after your money. All this is not so much my situation because I've been doing it now for my God almost 30 years. Jeez.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Wow, nice.

SPEAKER_01

And it started out, as I said, in my lunch break and then grew into something different. So now I don't have to worry about that. But those were the times when it was tough, I would say, yes.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Okay, I have a few rapid questions. I love your favorite microphones. Newman. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

If I once I can afford it, but in the studio it's more mostly a Newman or Neumann, as they say from Berlin. Yeah, Neumann for sure.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Just to look into that.

SPEAKER_01

Coffee or tea before recording? I shouldn't, but I need a coffee. Then I bite into an apple. I just I can't do without coffee. But it's not good. It's absolutely right. It's not good for your throat? No, it's it dehydrates the vocal cords. So do it half an hour before and then drink water, bite into an apple, you'll be fine. So don't directly before a session drink coffee.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

That's very interesting. Your favorite act voiceover actor, besides the German guy that you mentioned, that you said he was his great that went to Germany.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Besides him, who is your favorite voiceover person?

SPEAKER_01

Now I'm gonna completely contradict myself because I would say Michael York, who is or was an a British actor, and my husband and I were currently listening to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which I never read, I have to admit. And we say, let's get it as an audiobook because we are often driving and listening. It's unbelievable how good he is. And he does all the voices, he's incredible.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Michael York. Michael York. I have to remember that I don't read books anymore, I only listen. But I love listening to books.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, okay. He's fantastic. He's fantastic. I'm gonna check it out. Yeah, but he's an actor, and I said before that actors are not good voice actors. He's an exception, he's amazing, yeah, remarkable.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

The hardest word you ever had to pronounce. Dioxyribonucleic acid.

SPEAKER_01

And as you see, I prepared that was for Pfizer. And it had to just roll down in the middle of a sentence.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Oh, that's like super califragilistic.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, DNA basically wants to say. Do you prefer studio or home of studio? Definitely the studio, still. Because let me tell you, the hang, and that was the hardest in COVID, to lose the hang with a sound engineer. And then there's usually, again, a colleague of yours who's reading along outside the booth. It sounds very funny, but sometimes you lose a word or you add a word. That happens sometimes. So somebody reads along, and there's always a great hang. It's in the beginning you feel it's very it was very lonely in the voice booth, I have to say. Did you get used to everything, and often now through Source Connect, you chat a little bit before and after the session, but there's a beautiful human element, and now it's just me and the microphone. And then you send off the job into the ether. It's a different story now.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

If you're on if you were not doing voiceover, what would you have done?

SPEAKER_01

Can you believe I never even thought of that? Isn't this amazing? Because I'm so fulfilled with my voiceovers. I now have a little farm, but that was the furthest from my wishes. Teaching, funny. Teaching? Yes, giving museum tours. Oh my god, I would love it. One day I'm gonna do that for maybe anyway.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Now you only do it with your voice, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Studio Costs Advice And Goodbye

SPEAKER_01

I do have another little side hustle that I love, and that's something I would like to what is it? I do German translations for the Metropolitan Opera.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

You translate opera to German.

SPEAKER_01

Not quite the libretto. So what happens if you go to the Met, you have a little screen in front of you on the backseat. And you can choose always between German, English, Spanish. Once in a while, Italian. If it's an Italian opera, you can choose Italian too. But you're not exactly seeing the libretto that they sing. You see something that is called the Met titles. And that is something that is really very carefully crafted, curated, and written by the dramaturg who goes to all the rehearsals, and he does a the titles for each scene, and not in scene, like for every line, literally. And then that I get in English and I translate that into German. Then it gets reviewed by a German conductor, and then it gets fed into a system and it lines.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

And that's what you read when you hear the opera.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. And then I go to the final dress rehearsal to make sure it lines up.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

How did you fall into that? That is not voiceover, that is type.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and it literally fell also in my lap. I was in my hammock outside. Phone rings an agency that I haven't even worked with in over 10 years. And I pick up the phone and they say, Hi Heike, by the way, do you like opera? And I happen to really love opera. I mean, when I came to New York, I on day three I took a tour through the mat.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Translation is needed in so many different places. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And that I think, of course, there's Google Translate and there's AI. But a good translation is still at this point not replace it with a machine.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

But back for a second to the voiceover. What was the longest way you had to take more and more takes before they actually said that's good?

SPEAKER_01

I would say those are the it's in English always. That takes me a little longer and to make it sound naturally enroll effortlessly. And I would say probably my Pfizer job with the dioxyribonocleic acid. Have it roll off my tongue in the middle of the sentence as if I say it all the time. Took a few takes.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Okay, so I want to thank you for sharing your time and your stories and letting us know what voiceover is all about.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for coming. Thank you for what you're doing. I think this is wonderful to look at different jobs. Thank you so much. It's it was such a pleasure.

Mirav Ozeri - Host

Thank you. If you enjoyed hearing about what it takes to make a living with your voice, there are many more performances and creative careers to explore. Head over to How Much Can I Make That Info and visit the Performance and Creative Careers category. There are more conversations with people about their work, how much money they make, and how actually they build those careers. And see you next week on How Much Can I Make.

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Mirav Ozeri

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